The Fourth District Administrative Judge has set up a committee to screen the public defender applications. Rob Chastain (criminal defense attorney and, until recently, the Boise Co. Public Defender), Jay Rosenthal (former Ada Co. Prosecuting Attorney and Deputy Attorney General), and Alan Trimming (the venerable Ada Co. Public Defender) are the committee members.There have also been some interesting additions to the applicants including Mark Mimura of Mimura Law Offices. You may remember that MLO took over the Canyon Co. PD contract and is also the Gem Co. Public Defender. Perhaps Mark is looking to fulfill the long-time goal of having a state public defender system by increasing his firm one county at a time. (Mark: If you get Valley, grab Owyhee and Idaho Counties and your empire will run without interruption from Montana to Nevada!)
MLO has also been in the local news recently, as Randy Groves, the Kuna City Attorney, announced he was resigning to join Team Mimura. Randy used to be a Boise City Attorney.
Curiously, MLO personnel is chock-full-of-former-prosecutors, some of whom actually worked for the Canyon County Prosecutor's Office. At the same time, many fine criminal defense lawyers from Wiebe & Fouser were not hired by MLO. Now, I know that the criminal defense bar has many members who once, in their misguided youth, perhaps, were prosecuting attorneys. I also know that Sun Tzu advises us to "know your enemy." But "be your enemy" is a new one on me.
I think it is important to note that many of the former prosecutors now doing public defense work in canyon county were really public defenders at heart as Boise City prosecutors. They were the prosecutors that defense attorneys cheered over seeing on the discovery signature line. Thus, they were never the enemy and have probably found true peace at heart in their new roles. Go MLO and the true rain maker his sister SLM--build the empire!
ReplyDeleteI hope you're right about the two (as far as I can recollect - SLM and RG) former Boise City Attorneys now finding true peace at heart.
ReplyDeletePerhaps there are more on the path to enlightenment (or was that empire?) and my memory fails me. I have always found the Boise City Attorney's office to be professional, fair and courteous as they were trying to put my client in jail, or take away his license, or such.
Plus the "enemy" thing was just a bit of hyperbole used to make a joke. The concern about leaving good defense lawyers out in the cold for unknown reasons was sincere.
"and the true rain maker his sister SLM" What does this mean? And what does this make Mark?
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